The Gambia or Bust!

Salaam Mailkoom! I hope everyone is enjoying their dog days of summer. We’re in the middle of the rainy season here so there are torrential downpours with impressive lightning storms every couple of days. (Being native to Southern California I have no concept of what serious lightening is. Recently I was standing on a porch in front a house that had a metal roof on it, all of the roofs here are all either thatched with straw or covered in corrugate metal, and a storm hit; they come and go really suddenly here. The next thing I knew there was a brilliant, hot flash right in front of me. I should have sensed the severity of it when all the Gambians ran inside their houses but I shrugged it off as something that just happens during storms in other, more exotic places. It took a girl from Iowa (where there’s lots of lightening and humidity apparently, who knew it was so exotic) to explain to me that lightening had struck right in front of us, literally a few feet away! One of my co-volunteers actually got a shock because her glasses acted as a conductor, good thing my shoes were dry (for once)). Besides being a harbinger of near death experiences rainy season also means that the landscape is lush and green (and filled with mangoes!) which is lovely (in the case of the mangoes, lovely and delicious). It’s a nice introduction to the country since the flip-side to ‘rainy’ season is, wait for it…’dry’ season! I anticipate much dust and dried up grass in my future (November – May). Less bugs though, and oh boy do those bugs love their rain. When they are feeling affectionate they literally bounce off of you. Back to the fascinating topic of weather, the afternoons are generally hot and sticky with temperatures in the high 90’s, or I guess I should say high 30's since we’re measuring in Celsius on this side of the pond. It gets a little challenging to function in the middle of the day but if you take it easy it’s alright. It’s actually not that much hotter than it is in the American South, the real difference being that there is no refuge from it.

Before I got my Peace Corps invitation I had never even heard of The Gambia so here’s a little info:
It’s the smallest country in Africa. There are areas in which the entire country spans only twenty-five miles north to south! Its most prominent feature is ‘The River Gambia’ that runs through approximately two-thirds of the country. There are 1.4 million people living here. For some perspective, Los Angeles County has a population of almost 10 million! 40% of the population is under the age of 15 which you would have no trouble believing if you visited my front porch on any given evening, I’m pretty sure that half the kids in this country are sitting there eagerly waiting to play ‘Crazy 8’s’ (more on that later). The Gambia is extremely poor. 80% of the people are farmers (the vast majority farm by hand!) and they export very little. Most of what they grow is consumed directly by the family or sold at local markets. Their major crops are groundnuts (yum!), rice, coos and corn. There are very few fresh fruits available (besides those delicious mangoes, but seriously do you need anything else when you have a perfect mango? The answer to that is ‘yes’ but you know, I’m extolling the virtues of Gambian mangoes here.) The country is about 98% Muslim and these are no lax ‘I’ll go to the mosque when it’s convenient’ Muslims. These are Quran memorizing, pray five times a day, marry up to four wives Muslims. We are currently observing Ramadan so almost everyone is fasting for a month. They rise before dawn to have breakfast and then go the day with absolutely no food or water. At sunset they ‘break fast’ and eat better than they do at any other time of the year. This goes on for a month. The truly hardcore abstain from water to the degree that they do not mindfully swallow their saliva. In order not to swallow you have to do the opposite, yup that’s right, they’re spitting. Gambians enjoy spitting as it is so you can imagine the spit fest that’s taking place in the name of Allah. Aside from that unfortunate detail the opportunity to watch whole communities come together to observe this ritual is pretty great. I do my best and certainly never eat or drink in front of them during the day but truth be told that jar of peanut butter has been cracked open more than once in the privacy of my hut while the sun shines brightly overhead.

Here are my digs:

The back door to my house!

My front yard! Goats!

The kitchen!

Gambians cook outside over a wood burning flame as a general rule.

My bedroom!

Fon naatoo! (Until later!)